Play Minesweeper Online - Instructions

Minesweeper is a classic logic video game that has been around for years. It became widely popular when Microsoft starting bundling it with the Windows operating system. I remember playing this game for the first time years ago on my old Windows PC.

Even though it's an older game, Minesweeper really does train your reasoning skills. Given a grid of blank squares, your task is to deduce where all the mines are located - without setting any of them off!

Clicking a mine-free square reveals a number or opens a blank area. A number indicates how many mines are adjacent to that square (eight possible locations, including the four diagonal spaces).

Using these numbers and logical reasoning, narrow down each mine's location and mark it with a flag. To win the game, mark the location of all the mines on the board. See below for more instructions.

HOW TO PLAY. After the game loads, choose the level of difficulty by click the Easy, Medium, or Tough radio button. The greater the difficulty, the larger the minefield. Then type your name in the "Enter your name" box if you wish (it's not required), and click the Start button.

The number of mines remaining displays in the lower left of the screen. The amount of time you've been playing shows in the lower right. The timer starts when you first click a square.

To begin to play Minesweeper online, click any square on the grid. This will either reveal a mine (game over), or a number or blank space will display.

Hitting a blank space is helpful, because it usually opens up large areas of the board for you. The numbers are where the brain training comes in, though.

From what I can determine, the best numbers to get are the 1's. As you can see in the screen image at right, I've uncovered an L-shaped pattern of 1's on the board.

Since a "1" indicates that there is exactly one mine adjacent to that square, the "1" you see in the corner of the L tells me that the only place the mine can be located is where I've set the flag.

The other numbers near the flag confirm my deductive reasoning. The two 1's nearby also imply the existence of a mine at or very close to that location.

Follow a similar strategy to reveal the remaining mines on the board. Whenever you identify the location of a mine, hover the mouse over that square and press the SPACEBAR. This plants a flag on that spot, indicating there is a mine underneath.

If at any point you click on a square where a hidden mine is located, all the mines on the board explode (see image at left). This means the game is over!

No worries if this happens. Just click the Restart button and try again.

If at any time you want to return to the main menu and change the Minesweeper difficulty level, click the Splash button.

Minesweeper is a relatively simple game design wise. But I think it's fun to play Minesweeper online for brain training purposes, because it forces you to focus on one thing - logical problem solving.